The quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecasts estimates that the state unemployment rate of 10.8 percent will drop to 9.7 percent next year and 8.3 percent in 2014.

That's still above the U.S. unemployment rate, projected to be 8.2 percent this year and 7.9 percent in 2013.

However, California's recovery from the 2008-2009 recession may be faster than the nation's as a whole. In part, that's because the sour housing market that dragged down California's economy and cost 350,000 construction jobs may recover in the next two years.

UCLA forecasters say it may take seven or eight years before America regains all the jobs it lost.